


Kinktober Day 19: Mirror Sex

by tiamatv



Series: Promptober 2020 [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (They Are Of Course Switches), Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Author!Castiel, Body Image, Body Worship, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fireman!Dean, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Mirror Sex, Porn with Feelings, Sex Toys, Sweet Dean Winchester, Top/Bottom Versatile Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:00:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: The first time Dean mentions it, Castiel almost kicks him bodily to the floor.Dean’s not on top of him when that happens—and in retrospect, that’s a very good thing.It’s the last time Dean brings it up.(In the same universe as Day 13: Ladies and Day 18: Dark and Stormy, but can likely be read independently.)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Promptober 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954990
Comments: 55
Kudos: 280





	Kinktober Day 19: Mirror Sex

**Author's Note:**

> I had absolutely no idea how to tag this well--not least because it's nearly two in the morning. Please be warned that this is not just sweetheart fluff, though there's a lot of that: even though this is established relationship, there is definitely some hurt to get through to get to the comfort this time. If there are any tags you feel need to be added, please let me know.
> 
> I'm almost certainly going to rework this at some point later for coherence (and possibly continuity depending on how much of the rest of their story I end up writing!) but at this time of the night, I'm too exhausted to reread it.
> 
> TW that, as in the summary, Castiel does react badly at one point, though no-one is physically hurt.

The first time Dean mentions it, Castiel almost kicks him bodily to the floor.

Dean’s not on top of him when that happens—and in retrospect, that’s a very good thing.

It’s the last time Dean brings it up.

*_*_*_*

Castiel is sitting up on the side of the bed, and he has a notebook out and balanced on his knee, the bedside lamp on. Notebook choice is still strange for him, but these lined A5s work well: they _do_ actually lie as flat as advertised, which surprised him, but they’re just big enough that if they’re on his lap he can turn and wedge his left arm against the left side page to keep it from sliding off his legs as he writes.

He was never really much of one for handwriting, though he knows it’s the preference of some of the few writers he has corresponded with in the past. He always typed before, and now that he is as he is, _much_ prefers to dictate. He’s so used to the sound of his own voice anyway, after all these years—he originally started reading his own books for audio so that they wouldn’t have to pay someone to do it, when he got his start, but at this point it’s turned into a conceit. Audible tried to hire a voice actor to replace him somewhere around book twelve, ostensibly to free up Castiel for more writing. The complaints were so many and so varied and so _virulent_ that Castiel didn’t know whether to be flattered that people enjoyed his strange, rough voice or disturbed by how _much_ they seemed to enjoy it.

Admittedly, Castiel never thought, in the _before_ , just how much he might _need_ to get used to the sound of his own voice telling his own stories. The transition from typing to dictation, when he could think enough to want to write again, off the pain medicines that dulled and diminished him, was seamless.

Some blessings are very small, and some are so infinite they disappear off into the horizon at the edge of the world. Like highways, or rainbows.

Castiel scribbles out another line of dialogue, smiling to himself at his own absurdity. The truth is, his handwriting is so bad that even he has trouble deciphering it, at times. There’s even odds that he will bring this page out into the sunlight tomorrow morning and have no idea what he just wrote. But the germ of the scene will still be there, and he thinks this’ll be enough.

He normally can’t dictate in the presence of another person—the words won’t come out, they stay choked and uncomfortable in the back of his throat. He couldn’t even _type_ in the company of others before, most of the time—coffee shops were not his milieu of choice.

But it’s comfortable enough with Dean, now, that this, he can do.

Castiel supposes he could always leave and go into the living room, close the door and put on his dictation headset. He doesn’t want to leave the bed, though. Not with Dean shifting around, warm and lazy and post-coital behind him.

Castiel chews on the end of his pen as he feels Dean twitch himself out of half-sleep (he really gives himself over to hypnic jerks, like a dreaming puppy, when he’s not all the way asleep; this time, the reason Castiel’s even awake to write is that probably an hour ago, Dean kicked him). His yawn is loud and unabashed, and the bed shifts behind Castiel as Dean sits up.

“Oh,” Dean murmurs, his lips against the back of Castiel’s good shoulder. Then he just slumps, his weight against Castiel’s back, face plopped between Castiel’s shoulder blades and his forehead against the back of Castiel’s neck. He’s still careful about it—Castiel’s back and abdomen are strong enough, after all the physical therapy he’s had, that he doesn’t need to catch himself on his arms when someone puts pressure on the wrong side, but Dean’s not exactly light. When he must feel that Castiel has him, he scrunches in further. “Work too hard,” he grumbles, and his hands skirt along Castiel’s side to rest on the bed alongside his hips. He rubs the sides of Castiel’s thighs, like he’s attempting to soothe.

Castiel feels a smile tug at his lips. “This, coming from the firefighter whose entire career involves twenty-four hour shifts and occasionally running into burning buildings?” He folds his notebook shut on his thigh, relocates the pen to his bedside table so they don’t end up with it wedged somewhere uncomfortable in the middle of the night, and reaches his hand back.

Dean moves behind him, nuzzling lazily as he goes, until his chin is hooked over Castiel’s right shoulder. “S’not like your novels, you know that,” he complains. “Mostly stupid kids with fire alarms an’ metal in microwaves and a lot of poker. N’paperwork. Fuckin’ paperwork.” His hair is a little sweaty under Castiel’s hand. Dean’s skin is still warm and flushed where his cheek rests in a soft rasp against Castiel’s jawline.

 _I did this,_ Castiel thinks, with something akin to wonder. His fingers tighten in Dean’s hair, and Dean makes a small, pleased noise before Castiel forces himself to let go.

It’s never anything less than wondrous. Castiel has never done anything in his whole life so good as to deserve this, and yet here they are.

“Whatcha writin’?” Dean asks, sleepily. He cranes his chin to peer forward.

(He must, of course, have already seen that Castiel’s notebook is closed. So the effort is more adorable than it is alarming.)

Castiel twists a little and pretends to click his teeth at him. “Dragon erotica,” he teases. “What else does one write in the middle of the night?”

“What? Oh, _shit._ Okay, I’m awake,” Dean answers, hurriedly.

Castiel smiles. “Oh, _please,_ enough with the fake enthusiasm,” he chides, chuckling. “I think you’d tickle me to death in my sleep if I told you I was giving up Amanda and Tessie to write anything else. _Even_ porn.”

“Well, _could_ really be dragon porn, for all I know, s’not like you ever tell me what you’re actually writing about, anyway,” Dean grumbles.

This time, Castiel laughs. That’s true, he doesn’t, and he finds it hopelessly sweet that Dean keeps asking anyway. They both know he won’t be answered, by now.

Dean prods him in the fleshy part of his hip. “Hey, I’m just sayin’, what’s the benefit of dating my favorite author if I don’t get sneak peeks, huh?”

Castiel doesn’t know if he considers it a little flattering, or _so completely_ flattering that he knows that Dean honestly does believe that: that James Novak is his favorite author.

Castiel reaches back and traces a finger along where Dean’s side must be. His fingers encounter skin, and Dean wiggles and mutters, _“hey,_ ” so yes, that’s what that is. “I don’t know, you get a few benefits that my other readers don’t get,” he murmurs, smiling.

“Mm _mm_ ,” Dean sighs, happily, and presses back again, closer. “Yeah. I guess maybe. Few things. _Best_ things.” The words get smooshed somewhere in the vicinity of Castiel’s latissimus dorsi. “I get _Cas._ ”

Castiel smiles and shakes his head.

Sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, Dean really doesn’t make any sense. They both know that James Novak is who he is, but _Castiel’s_ not exactly a prize.

Dean’s so sweet, though.

Castiel thinks Dean has gone back to dozing—he’s _heavy_ —and is considering how best to relocate him back to a pillow without cracking his head on the headboard, but a moment later, Dean mumbles, blurred with sleep. “Hey, y’wanna come over after I get home from my shift later?”

“Not later, tomorrow,” Castiel answers, absently. Dean snorts, half-snuffle. They both know that Dean’s strange conception of time as it runs in twenty-four hour blocks rather than in sunrises and sunsets drives Castiel _bonkers_ , but it’s unavoidable. “What time?”

Dean yawns against the back of his shoulder. “Come by at 8?”

“Okay,” Castiel agrees. “I’ll order in.” Dean makes a small, angry grumbling noise, but Castiel rolls his eyes. “You can’t cook for us all the time. Mind if I ask why we’re meeting at your place, though?” It’s unusual enough for them to spend time at Dean’s smaller house, when it’s a matter of steps for Dean to get to Castiel’s bigger, more comfortable one.

Some of Dean’s favorite pots and pans have migrated to live in Castiel’s kitchen now—for the first time since he moved in, his stove has burn-rings and he had to clean the induction range. Dean still coos over it all, at times—even though all the equipment was already there when Castiel bought the house, and he never bothered with the modifications that might make it easier for him to cook.

“Got somethin’ to show you. Mmm. And then maybe sex?” Dean mumbles, hopefully.

This time, Castiel knows his laugh is joyful. Dean is _insatiable_. Castiel has had more sex since they became intimate than he’s had in his entire life, and he can’t wait to have more. “You really are trying to get me to write porn,” he jokes.

“Don’t laugh. You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous like this, you know?” Dean muses. “I get to see it all the time, but I wanna show you. Been thinkin’ about it. It’ll be dark by then, or we can close the windows… turn on that little lamp, you know? The one you say has nice light.”

He trails off with a small, shaky sigh. Anticipatory. Castiel knows that sigh.

“Mm-hmm? Yes?” Castiel prods him to continue, his fingers already tightening on his own knee. He steadies his breathing so he doesn’t heave Dean off his back with the force of it. He already knew that Dean had a gift for oral storytelling. He didn’t realize just how much he would learn to appreciate it—not this way, anyway.

“You know that big mirror in my bedroom? I was thinking, I could move it.” He sighs, happily, and kisses the side of Castiel’s neck. “You’re so goddamned hot, Cas. Wanna fuck you in front of it. Want you to see what you look like. Yeah? We can both watch.”

The kisses he’s dropping in soft little pecks along Castiel’s shoulder feel like spatters of boiling oil. Dean seems to have no awareness that Castiel has turned into stone—a gargoyle, cold and sharp and worn.

No. No, _no_.

They’ve made love face to face, even though Castiel still prefers to be on his stomach if he has the choice, or have Dean on his, or for them both to be under the blankets. They’ve gotten this far, and Castiel finds that he doesn’t entirely mind having Dean on top of him when it means he can watch the flicker of expressions and warmth and excitement crossing Dean’s face, when he can watch _Dean,_ even knowing that Dean can look down and see everything that’s so imperfect about Castiel’s body.

But this—

Castiel is well aware of how ugly he is, under his clothing. He still flinches a little when Dean’s fingers catch on some of his scars, and it’s not because they physically hurt anymore. He sure as all of God’s creatures in heaven doesn’t need to _see_ them.

Why would Dean even say that? Why would Dean even _want_ that?!

Castiel is a big man. He knows he is, even though he’s not truly used to thinking about himself that way, and he might only have one arm, but the rest of him is balanced and _strong_. Dean is bigger, but he’s slack and relaxed, and he goes sprawling when Castiel whirls and shoves him off his back, almost clocking Dean in the chin with the back of his head.

Dean sprawls across Castiel’s sex-rumpled sheets, wide-eyed, shocked, and looks at Castiel like Castiel just struck him. He very nearly just did.

“You should go,” Castiel says, and he hears the unpleasantness and the cold dark vibrating through the back of his already deep voice.

Dean blinks at him, that soft, contented, wonderful sleepiness fading from his expression. He pushes himself up and holds out a hand. “Huh? Cas—”

But Castiel doesn’t want to hear it. He _doesn’t want to_. He wants to slap that hand that Dean is holding out to him away as much as he wants to grab it and haul Dean against him and never let him go, and he doesn’t know which one he wants more, and he can’t do _either_.

“Dean, get _out_ ,” Castiel snarls. It tears at his throat. It _hurts_.

Dean reels back from him.

But Dean doesn’t protest that Castiel is being oversensitive or unfair or _ridiculous_. He doesn’t even say that it’s the middle of the night, and sweat and other things are still drying on the both of them because they spent the evening completely unproductive, giggling and teasing and touching, and afterwards, Dean dozed off and Castiel sat up to write before either of them got clean.

The best thing that has ever happened to Castiel in his entire life crawls off the foot of the bed and stumbles into his clothing, awkwardly, without Castiel looking up at him.

Dean’s steps still aren’t steady when he leaves. In the darkness, Castiel hears him trip and stumble on the unevenly balanced bottom stairs, but he catches himself without an expletive. Even in the silence in the middle of the night, the sound of Castiel’s front door closing is still so quiet, the soft touch mechanism gently gliding it closed with a click.

Would Dean have slammed it if not?

Or would he have eased it gently shut so that the sound of it didn’t bother Jody and Donna, next door?

Castiel’s throat seizes, and he bows over his knees, fighting for breath, hand clutching so hard at the notebook he feels the hard cover bend. When he can finally unfold himself enough to breathe, the digital clock blinks red at him, the numbers blurring and running in front of him and accusatory.

It’s two in the morning. He just kicked Dean out at two in the morning because he told Castiel that he thought he was beautiful, that he wanted to touch him, that he wanted to _watch_ him. When Castiel looks up, there’s a sock that’s sprawled limp on the floor. It has cartoon squirrels on it. Dean left without one of his socks.

What did Castiel just do?

What is he _doing_?

And, with no further recourse, Castiel crawls back into a bed still warm with Dean’s skin and stares up into the ceiling like something dead until thin morning light and exhaustion wipe him away.

By the time he makes his slow way back downstairs again, the sun has come and gone. His stomach is so empty he’s nauseated—he’s not used to skipping meals anymore. Dean’s car isn’t in his driveway in front of his house: Castiel heard the characteristic deep purr of Dean’s beautiful big Baby pulling away long ago.

He couldn’t think what was so different about it until he realized he hadn’t heard any music.

*_*_*_*

It’s an eternity later—it’s a full, inevitable twenty-four hours later, a twitchy, sleepless night with his arm throbbing so painfully with stress that Castiel eventually caved and popped a Norco, snowing him under—when Castiel looks up from his study of the tick of his computer clock and the interminably blank page in front of him, and takes his headset off.

He thought about writing something for Dean again, but it seems like such an empty gesture: it’s just words on paper. He knows that Dean would value it—treasure it—but with what they have, that’s no different than someone buying their loved one jewelry because they wronged them. It’s not an actual apology.

Apologies are so much more difficult. Especially when they’re deserved. Especially when they’re _meant_.

He started dictating out a half-dozen texts (he hates texting, he hates it _so much_ ) before not sending any of them.

Castiel puts on real pants, a real button-down shirt. The brief struggle with the buttons makes him realize he really does need to do this more often, because his fingers have half-forgotten the trick of it, and he used to be quite good at it when he was going to OT regularly. He pins up his empty sleeve and slips his cellphone into his pocket. He gathers up the lone sock Dean left in the bedroom.

Then he sits down on the sofa, closes his eyes, and waits the forty-five minutes that he knows Dean will want to use to shower after he gets home from the station.

He starts walking at 7:56.

Donna is watering her garden box when he walks by—he asked her once, curiously, why she waters in the dark; she eyed him like she thought he was a little simple, and answered “So all the water doesn’t get taken out by the sun, don’cha know?” which, Castiel supposes, he _didn’t_ know, and that makes a strange sort of sense.

“Cas-ti-el!” she says—she always seems to make his name three distinct syllables; he’s afraid of the answer, so he hasn’t asked her why she does _that,_ too. “You goin’ to Dean’s? You tell him he still has my brownie pan! We’re watching Steel Magnolias this Friday and we can’t do that without brownies!”

Because, in a convoluted twist, Dean’s brownie pan was at Castiel’s last week, and Dean had wanted to surprise Castiel with blondies—he’d never had them—and couldn’t very well do so if he went over and got his pan back.

Castiel’s heart hurts so badly he almost curls around it again. He doesn’t ask why Donna doesn’t ask Dean herself, but then he realizes that Dean can almost certainly hear her. Which was probably her intention, from the way she’s smirking in the direction of Dean’s house.

She salutes Castiel with the hose. That doesn’t seem to require any sort of response, so Castiel nods to his next-door neighbor and keeps trudging forward. By 7:59, he’s standing in front of Dean’s door, his palm resting on the doorbell.

When Dean first rung his doorbell, did it feel anything like this? It couldn’t have. Dean hadn’t done anything wrong. All he’d done was gone looking for a tablespoon and a half of ground cumin.

And look what _that_ has gotten him.

But the door swings open before he presses it.

Dean doesn’t look like he slept any better than Castiel did. His full lips are paler than they should be, and there’s a sag of darkness under both eyes that mars the freckles that Dean hates. He looks his age, and Dean typically doesn’t.

Castiel could tell himself that it was a long twenty-four shift for Dean, and that’s why he looks worn and sad and so tired around the edges. But that would be an excuse.

“Can I come in?” he asks, quietly.

Dean studies him, and steps back silently to let him enter.

The truth is, he’s rarely in Dean’s home unless they’re planning to watch something. It’s true, Castiel doesn’t require much accommodation for what he realizes is a disability but certainly doesn’t like to _call_ that, but they also both know that Castiel’s home is larger, and—if he’s going to be honest—better equipped. (Except, well, he doesn’t have a TV. He’s never required one.)

But Dean’s home is small as a hug, well-loved, and every time he visits Castiel thinks they should spend more time, here. Castiel didn’t build or decorate his own house—what comforts in it are incidental, and for the most part Anna’s doing, and to a lesser degree, Charlie’s. (Or at least all the comfortable seating is Charlie’s, Castiel is sure: he’s seen Anna’s furniture.)

The inside of Dean’s home is _his_ , indelibly so, from his nephew’s drawings, the border on the wallpaper that looks very much like tiny mechanical gears, the enormous flatscreen TV, the equally enormous, indulgent leather sofa that Castiel honestly has to roll onto his side a little bit to get out of because it swallows him so deeply and he has to push with his arm to extract himself.

Castiel stops to realize that there is a new decoration on Dean’s entryway wall, in place of pride: five simply framed pieces of coarse draft printer paper, covered with words. 0.75 margins, Calibri, 1.5 spacing with full spacing between paragraphs.

He recognizes them, of course.

“Oh. If I’d known, I’d have printed them out on nicer paper,” Castiel jokes, weakly.

It’s a terrible joke. He knows it the moment it’s out. It’s awful, and it’s terribly timed, and completely inappropriate for the moment.

It doesn’t get a smile out of Dean, either. His shoulders bow like Castiel laid a lash across them. “No, Cas, I… I love ‘em, that’s why… yeah,” he sighs, and his chin dips. He watches as Castiel toes off his shoes. Dean takes the abandoned squirrel sock from him in silence.

Castiel realizes why Dean looks so wretched rather than _angry_ when his lover asks, very quietly, folding the lonely sock back and forth between his hands, “So how bad did I fuck up?”

Castiel swallows razors. “Dean—it wasn’t—you didn’t—” he rasps, but the words just won’t come out right.

Dean tries so _hard_. He’s not always right, he can’t always keep from putting a hand on Castiel’s sharp, painful edges, but he tries _so_ hard: the absolute least Castiel can do is try not to _cut_ him on them.

Dean shakes his head, and a hint of his familiar smile trembles on the corners of his lips before it slips away, like not even his normal joie-de-vivre can clothespin it up at the corners. “No. Geez, no, I… no, Cas. I was bein’ stupid. I knew…” he wipes the back of his hand over his eyes and sighs. “I was tired, I wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry—”

Dean probably _was_ tired, and he probably _wasn’t_ thinking, but Castiel’s chest hurts again, now. Dean said nothing, did nothing, that anyone could possibly consider _wrong._ The fact that Dean now feels the need to disguise the tenderness he offered in self-blame is _Castiel’s_ doing, and not Dean’s fault.

“Did you mean it?” Castiel interrupts the flow of completely unjustified self-recrimination. “Do you really want to do that?”

Dean’s halting, shaky apology goes still. His lips go white as they pinch together. He tucks himself so much smaller than a tall, beautiful, confident man who’s brought sunshine into the life of everyone in their neighborhood should be able to.

“You don’t want me to answer that, sweetheart,” Dean finally says, very quietly.

He looks _ashamed_.

 _Castiel_ did that, and he hates himself for it so much more than he could ever hate his body.

When he steps towards Dean, Dean doesn’t drop his hands from between them, as if he can’t quite make his body believe that Castiel is approaching. Castiel edges close, not believing himself that he’s not going to be pushed away until they’re standing close enough that Dean’s hands are sandwiched between their torsos. Distantly, Castiel realizes that Dean can probably feel at least some of his scars through his thin button-down shirt. He doesn’t care.

“You’re _wonderful,_ Dean,” he says, his heart grated and bloody in his throat, and raises his hand to Dean’s face, nudging his fingertips through bronze-wet temples. “If anyone ever makes you believe otherwise, I’ll make them regret it. I know this, because _I_ regret it. I’m so sorry.”

Dean’s eyebrows scrunch. “Cas—" he says, hoarsely.

“And what you said? I’ll think about it,” Castiel interrupts, softly, because he won’t hear any more self-recrimination out of Dean.

He means it, too.

This time, Dean’s tired green eyes flinch. “ _No,_ Cas, you really—” he protests.

“ _I’ll think about it_ ,” he repeats, his hand on Dean’s cheek. When he slides it downwards and touches Dean’s hand again, Dean doesn’t pull away. “Can we just have dinner today?”

“Will you let me cook?” Dean asks, equally quietly, but his voice isn’t shaking. Very carefully, tentatively, he tips his head down and rests their foreheads together. Castiel closes his eyes into the weighty, small pleasure of it—how Dean’s hair is wet and he smells like sandalwood, because he just shaved. The _comfort_ of it. His hand closes a little too tightly around both of Dean’s, between their bodies.

Castiel almost agrees. It would be so easy to give in, to give Dean this little concession of a thing that he wants. But while he can’t quite say that he _understands_ , not entirely, he’s got a better idea now of how Dean’s caretaking habits work.

And Castiel will _not_ let him do penance, not for this.

“No,” he says, firmly, but he tilts his chin just enough to brush his lips against Dean’s chin, matching the sides of their noses together. “We’re ordering pizza from that place you like. But you can pick the movie.”

Dean’s soft mutter of “Bossy,” against his lips is the best thing he’s tasted in a long, long time.

*_*_*_*

For the first time in three years, Castiel goes back to therapy.

“I… I want to be less… broken,” he stumbles out, to a woman he doesn’t know, someone he’s paying to take him apart. “I don’t know how to be, but I want to be.”

He remembers it being excruciating.

(It’s worse.)

*_*_*_*

Castiel is sure that Dean will never mention it again, and he wouldn’t expect him to.

So Castiel is the one who kneels on a pillow at the foot of Dean’s bed, and sucks him in. It’s by far the best position for them, though Castiel’s gotten better at balancing over Dean with his good elbow propped on the bed, going down on him without using his hand. He has to be more careful when he does that, but that’s good, sometimes. That control feels wonderful, occasionally.

This, though, on his knees, Dean’s thighs spread wide around him to make room. It’s not prim or proper. It’s not an easy, neat blowjob, and Castiel doesn’t try and make it one: taking him deeper, past comfort, too fast, spit-wet—but it gets surprisingly easier after a few strokes. Practice really does make perfect. His jaw aches with it—he’s not _that_ good at this, or maybe everyone’s jaw just sort of hurts after a while—but the head of Dean’s cock fits so beautifully against the notch of his soft palate when he arches his head just right. Dean strains against him, and Castiel almost chokes, but he catches himself, and it feels like triumph.

Castiel's rediscovered the wonder of some discomforts.

Dean whines as Castiel closes his lips in a tight ring of suction, hollows his cheeks with Dean held as deeply within him as he can take. Dean is clutching at the bedsheets with both hands so hard that the sound of fabric creaking is almost as loud as his gasps. Castiel rolls his eyes up to watch him—the way that soft yellow natural-lamp light he so admired gilds his shoulders as they roll, the lick of it down his throat. The colors of Dean’s eyes flicker between things that are precious—dark gold, topaz, jade. He’s flushed down to his breastbone as he gasps, “Cas, sweetheart, fuck—yeah, gimme your mouth, _please_ —”

God, he’s so _much_. The litany of hoarse, beautiful obscenities, loud, unashamed begging, makes Castiel’s body clench tight around the plug he’s wearing. He put it in before he came over today. He hasn’t let Dean see it yet.

He can’t _wait_.

It’s not particularly large—certainly, it’s a good deal smaller than Dean’s shaft, to say nothing of the fullness of his glans—but that’s the point. Castiel wants to _feel_ him today. He doesn’t want the penetration to be easy. Some things have to be earned.

When Castiel pulls off with a thick wet ‘pop’ of the release of suction if not a release on Dean’s pleasure, Dean’s hips strain and thrust rudely into the air. “Aw, _c’mon,_ ” he complains, half-groaning, half-laughing.

Castiel grins. Just because Dean is an uncommonly generous lover doesn’t mean he’s not sometimes a _demanding_ one. Well, Castiel _has_ been teasing him for nearly an hour. If Dean had said “ _sonofabitch!_ ” Castiel would have pinched him.

“Not yet. Get the mirror, please,” he tells Dean, his voice even hoarser than usual. It’s probably the blowjob, and trying to fit Dean down his throat. Probably. (He’ll get it someday. He just needs more practice.)

For a moment, he doesn’t think that Dean understood. For a moment, Dean probably _doesn’t_ understand.

Then Dean’s eyes go _huge_ , the whites of them visible all around his lovely, changeable irises. “Cas…” he breathes. He licks his lips. But he doesn’t lean back—he leans forward. Castiel still doesn’t like his stump being touched—partially neuralgia, partially just, well, himself—but Dean’s hands tend to feel warm and good and symmetrical on his shoulders, and he doesn’t protest the feeling of them now. “You sure?”

“I don’t know if I can ever see what you see,” Castiel admits. That’s a lie, actually. He’s sure he can’t. He strokes a hand up and down the warm, comfortable bulk of Dean’s thigh, trailing his palm inwards to run his hand along the groove of adductor muscles. “But I’ll try.”

 _That’s_ the truth.

“Mm… can I help?” Dean asks, with surprising shyness. His hands linger on Castiel’s collarbones, thumbs feathering in little nervous flicks back and forth. “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”

Castiel blinks and cocks his head. How, exactly? But this is about trust. “Okay,” he agrees.

“And you’ll tell me if you want to stop?” Dean warns, making explicit what never had to be between them, before that night.

Castiel nods. “If _you_ tell _me_ if you need to stop,” he answers.

Dean’s soft snort, and his just slightly sarcastic “Uh-huh, because _I’m_ the stubborn one here,” makes Castiel smile.

Of _course_ Dean’s the stubborn one between them. Dean’s probably the one and only person who doesn’t think it. He outwaited _Castiel,_ didn’t he?

“Well, you are. And you say that,” Castiel notes, “but one day I _am_ going to keep you on the edge until you’re begging me to stop. I read a book about it,” he continues, to Dean’s wide-eyed surprise. “It seems like it might be enjoyable.”

“Did I create a monster, or were you always like this?” Dean retorts, but there’s such a playful reverence in it that Castiel chuckles and uses Dean’s thigh to help lever himself back onto his feet.

When he’s looming taller, his hand pressed to Dean’s heart, his palm covering the simple black tattoo Dean has over an old burn scar, he leans in and kisses him—filthy, all tongue and teeth, and he definitely learned _that_ from Dean. Dean’s trembling minutely by the time Castiel lifts back away. “I have to keep up with you somehow, don’t I?” Castiel teases.

“So by that, you mean you have to sex me into an early grave?” Dean drawls.

Castiel blinks and tips his head to the side. “Isn’t that the plot of one of my books?” he asks. “The one with the wife who kills her husband with an epi-pen?”

“Jesus Christ, Cas, can we maybe _not_ talk about murder in bed?” Dean groans, laughing again, but before Castiel can complain that Dean brought it up first, Dean pats tentatively against Castiel’s thigh. “Okay, let me up.”

Castiel wouldn’t be able to move the heavy, wood-edged standing mirror by himself, and even Dean huffs to carry it into position. But when it’s there, Castiel eyes it assessingly. It doesn’t just reflect the foot of the bed, as he expected—why he expected that, he’s not sure—but the angle and height of it means that there’s a long strip of Dean’s bed where everything from the headboard to the foot is caught in the reflection. Now it makes a little more sense why Dean wanted it here, quite aside from the fact that Castiel only has mirrors in the bathrooms: Dean’s bed doesn’t have a footboard, Castiel’s does.

He considers what it would look like, watching the curve of Dean’s back as he rides Castiel’s cock—seeing himself slipping in and out between those round, firm cheeks in one glance, watching Dean’s face go slack in another.

The idea isn’t quite as terrifying if Castiel thinks about the fact that _he_ can watch _Dean_ in this mirror, too.

Dean’s reaction when Castiel rolls to knees and his elbow and Dean sees the base of the plug is _just_ as satisfying as he hoped.

Dean, in fact, falls onto his butt next to Castiel’s hip like his knees have lost traction on the sheets.

“I know you like opening me up,” Castiel admits, craning his head over to peer at him—Dean does seem to enjoy it, and frankly, he’s better at the angles of it than Castiel is, which is a little embarrassing sometimes: Castiel thinks it’s a matter of balance and reach, since being propped on his left arm on his front is uncomfortable for more than a few minutes and on his back he just can’t seem to get _in_ right, but honestly, he probably just needs more practice. “But… I think I was impatient, too.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you are a fucking _gift_.” Dean’s fingers grasp the base of the plug gently and pull just enough that it’s stretching Cas open—oh, it’s not big, but it _feels_ plenty big right now—before releasing it. Castiel’s body tugs it back in with a swift, satisfying little pop. It’s just the faintest brush against his prostate in the position it’s in, but it feels like anticipation. “You be as impatient as you want, mmhmm, yup.” He pops the ‘p’ softly.

Castiel knew that the stretch would be intense, when he kneels over Dean—when Dean pulls out the plug and starts pressing in from behind, condom so wet with lube that it’s dribbling onto Dean’s short, dark pubic hair. It is _so_ intense, it’s just what he hoped it would be—deliciously, distractingly so, and he breathes his way through it in tiny sips of air as he’s pulled open. He almost always closes his eyes for this part, that’s not new, but the moment he feels the deep heavy _slip_ of Dean’s glans nipping the rest of the way in, he opens his eyes.

His gaze meets Dean’s in the mirror. It wasn’t intentional—really, it wasn’t.

“Fu- _uck_ ,” Dean groans, his hips jerking, and Castiel rather dimly and belatedly realizes that perhaps teasing Dean so much and _not_ letting him come was not his best laid plan. But his strong fingers dig deep and satisfyingly bruising into Castiel’s hips. “M’okay. I’m okay. Just… just wait a second.”

Castiel waits, letting his body ease into the stretch, too. But he’s watching Dean—the knees between Castiel’s, scraped with what he’s sure is a million childhood accidents, the tension in his thighs, the condom-wrapped cock that’s disappearing into Castiel… oh, he’s never gotten such a good look at this before. Maybe he’s just never paid attention.

“You’ve got the fucking cutest nipples,” Dean says, and Castiel blinks, his attention scattering.

“Wh-what?” he demands.

One of Dean’s hands skirts up his side and his thumb feathers against one of Castiel’s small brown nipples. Castiel realizes a moment later that his gaze automatically followed the flow of Dean’s fingers in their reflection, and now he’s looking at his own nipple, too. “Mine’re perky,” Dean says, matter-of-factly, “but yours are cute. And they’re _awesome_ to bite on,” he adds.

Castiel finds it unbelievable that he can possibly blush at that, but he does.

In retaliation, he rocks a little further down. The stretch is still a little too much, a little too _fast_ , but Castiel knows he’s not flagging. When he tips his pelvis forward—oh, yes, _there_. There, there.

But Dean’s not finished. His hand peels upwards from Castiel’s nipples to his good shoulder, and he presses a thumb into the hard curve of the edge of Castiel’s trapezoid—oh, that feels _wonderful_ , strangely soothing. Then Dean’s teeth follow the path of the strange little massage. Sometimes Castiel enjoys being bitten, sometimes he does not, but today, he _does_. Castiel’s rim flickers around the cock in him, and Dean’s breath hisses out through his nose.

“I like this spot so damned much,” he breathes. “Your shoulders are so goddamned strong, Cas. And you don’t wear t-shirts, so I’m the only one who gets to have this bit right here.” His teeth nip harder; he sucks, hard enough to hickey. He’s more careful when he skirts to Castiel’s bad side, but Castiel lets him mark there, too.

Dean doesn’t stop. Castiel doesn’t know if he wants to squirm in embarrassment, the litany of praise over inches of skin—then he _does_ squirm in embarrassment, and it only makes the both of them moan, because there is no such thing as an innocent kind of squirming when there’s a cock sliding into his ass. By the time he’s settled on Dean’s thighs, gasping from how full he is, Dean has a hand on his stomach to brace him and another on his cock to undo him, striping him gently.

Dean catches his breath enough to grin at Castiel over his shoulder and adds, “C’mon, Cas, even you’ve gotta admit you’ve got a fucking _gorgeous_ cock.” He squeezes his prize, gently.

Castiel, honestly, does not think that penises are pretty. (Dean laughed himself off the side of the bed when Castiel told him this, once.) Castiel _appreciates_ them, he truly does, but there’s a reason he doesn’t write erotica: just because he loves to suck and lick and stroke and take them within him does not mean that he can’t acknowledge that cocks really do look ridiculous.

But the sight of his own disappearing in and out of Dean’s firm hand, flushed and heavy, the slide of it easy and the slit of him creamy-wet is… well. That’s not bad.

Castiel rocks carefully and discovers that the slide within him is easy, now, too, his body relaxed, ready. He’s so full that all it takes is a little motion to take the pressure from good into _oh so good_.

He knows that the laparotomy and colostomy scars on his stomach are shockingly prominent, in this position, with his back arched. But Dean is tracing the muscles on either side of the thick band of keloid and secondary intent that bisects Castiel’s torso, purring something awed about Castiel’s abs, and he has to acknowledge that his stomach _is_ strong, and the lines of definition ripple enticingly as he rides Dean. Castiel’s legs are spread wide around Dean’s as he seats himself in his lap, the old scars on his groin from his IV lines white bare patches even through his thin dark pubic hair, the pocks that the ex-fix apparatus left in his lateral hipbones marring the smoother lines.

But Dean’s fingers cradle them, fingertips drawing lightly down groin creases, thumbs caressing the the prominent bump of Castiel’s anterior superior iliac spine, and he moans, “God, I could spend hours licking these.”

Castiel doesn’t doubt him: Dean has done precisely that.

There will always be an empty space by his left side where Castiel eyes will skip, momentarily unable to reconcile what’s gone.

Dean kisses what’s left—just once, a brief, reverent brush of lips to Castiel’s stump. He doesn’t say anything, and Castiel’s eyes sting. At that, he closes them.

But only for a moment.

Some parts of him are ugly—that will never change.

But they’re not _only_ ugly.

Castiel’s body feels so _good_ , and he rides himself on Dean’s lap in slow thrusts, pushing himself into Dean’s hand and feeling Dean tremble and moan behind him. Over his shoulder, Dean’s eyes are wide and bright, watching him move like he’s a miracle. Castiel watches himself in the mirror, and he’s not repulsed, but he watches them _both_ , and he thinks _“Oh. He was right.”_

Dean’s hand slides even further downwards, and his eyes start grinning even before Castiel catches the peek of his irrepressible smile. “And, I gotta tell you, sweetheart, your balls—"

Oh, no. “Oh dear God. Okay, _okay_ ,” Castiel groans, embarrassed and delighted and turned-on, and he didn’t realize that this would be _ridiculous_ as well as so intimate he feels like he’s being turned inside-out.

“What can I say? You’re so fucking sexy, Cas, every damned bit of you,” Dean murmurs, “and I wanna watch you ride me until my eyes cross.”

Well.

 _That_ Castiel can do.

He’s not too proud to let Dean brace him as he does it, leaning forward just enough to grip Dean’s knee for leverage.

He holds on tight for control—he wants to _see,_ tipping back enough when he gets close that Dean rubbing against his prostate is tantalizing rather than inciting _._ He watches the reflection over his shoulder as Dean’s mouth, finally, goes soft and shaky and tremulous, eyelids fluttering as he spills himself inside Castiel’s body, groaning and cursing and moaning Castiel’s name over and over in a litany of praise.

Castiel thinks he understands, a little.

It only takes a few more strokes to finish Castiel off, and he watches himself coming in the lamplit frame of the mirror. He feels the way his body clenches in a heartbeat rhythm around the cock still inside him, swelling and pulsing in Dean’s hand. God, he feels it, he’s almost swallowed up by it.

But Castiel _sees_ the thin pale splatter of come onto Dean’s thighs, the dribble of it rolling down Dean’s shaking fingers. He sees the way his lips part, his own blue eyes going soft-lidded, the hungry curve of his own body—watching his own pleasure, for the first time in his life.

It _is_ sexy.

Huh.

Dean cleans them both off, in a lazy, speechless silence after Castiel dismounts from him and twists only just enough to collapse facedown onto the sheets. Castiel lets him, but he hooks him in with a leg before Dean can get too far away again.

“Can you ride me, next time?” Castiel asks, sleepy and content. “I want to watch _you_.” Then, shyly, “This was a good idea.”

“Oh, sweetheart. Best monster I’ve ever created,” Dean mutters, and kisses him.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> When I woke up this morning I had absolutely no intentions of writing this. I had a cute little husbands 'fic in the Tentacles!Verse planned. Then as I was driving home this evening, I said "Oh, well, it's not too late in the day! This would fit, I'm really kind of into writing this 'verse right now, how long could this possibly take? It's my fiftieth SPN story, this should be special!"
> 
> Answer: Please remind me that I said no more Kinktobers on work days.
> 
> I will (hopefully? Probably? Hmm) get to their actual, you know... getting together, at some point. Really!


End file.
